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"ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION" 
By ARTHUR DEERIN CALL 

Secretary of the American Peace Society 



The Pkoblem. 



The real problem facing the United States today is 
not so much a question of whether we shall or shall 
not add a mule driver, two blacksmiths, and a sergeant 
to our army, or a hundred submarines and numberless 
air-craft to our navy; it is not the question of this or 
that type of military organization; it is not even the 
question of "Prussianism," whatever that means, of 
imperialism, of militarism, of ■ pro-German or of pro- 
Ally. The problem facing the United States, and so 
closely as not clearly to be seen, is, how are we going to 
perform our share toward overcoming the international 
war of forty years hence? How are we to avoid the 
race for the abyss, the fulfillment of Gambetta's proph- 
ecy when each nation shall be left "a beggar crouching 
by a barracks door" ? 

It is no mere figure of speech that civilization is or 
soon will be at the parting of the ways. Why we are 
not thinking and talking more about this is one of- the 
paradoxes of American politics, for war is not inevitable 
any more than slavery, witchcraft, and the inquisition 
were inevitable. 

It seems necessary for us to remind ourselves more 
frequently of this and of the fact that war as a means 
of settling international disputes, is and always has 
been unqualifiedly condemned by soldier and by civilian. 
Carl Schurz, a soldier of importance, expressed great 
indignation at the "flippant talk of war." The Duke of 
Wellington considered it a "detestable thing," and 
added, "If you had seen but one day of war you would 
pray God never to see another." General Sheridan 
held that "war will eliminate itself," and General Sher- 



2 

man that the glory of war is "all moonshine." Wash- 
ington called it the "plague to mankind," and even Na- 
poleon Bonaparte, at St. Helena, expressed the belief 
that "brute force can create nothing durable." Emer- 
son called war "an epidemic of insanity;" Jefferson 
"the greatest of human evils," while Franklin repeat- 
edly wrote : "There never was a good war nor a bad 
peace." William Ladd, founder of the American Peace 
Society, said, shortly before his death in 1841 : 

"Oh, that I had another life to devote to the holy 
cause of peace. It is a cause to die for. It is to me 
the field of glory, the field on which my Saviour died." 

It is written, and it is true not because it is written, 
but it is written because it is true : 

"The Lord loveth justice. . . . And the work of 
righteousness shall be peace. . . . And God shall 
judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peo- 
ples. . . . He shall make their officers peace, and 
their rulers righteousness." 

Within a year, concluding an address before the 
House of Lords, Lord Courtney expressed himself in 
these eloquent words : 

"We have been much moved of late by the history of 
a woman whose name would add luster to the great roll 
of noble English women. Miss Cavell's life was occu- 
pied in the service and sacrifice of love. A law-breaker, 
she came under the penalty of the law, and a barbarous 
and besotted government insisted on exacting the full 
penalty. In the many weeks she was in prison great 
thoughts took shape in Miss Cavell's mind, and her last 
words were: 'Standing before God and eternity, I real- 
ize that patriotism is not enough. I must be free from 
hate and bitterness/ With reverence I should like to 
make those words my own, and I beg your lordships to 
accept them in their simplicity and fullness." 

With nearly three-fourths of the world at war, spend- 
ing every week for purposes of wild destruction more 
than is spent in the entire United States in one whole 
year for peaceful education, it is of some importance 
that every intelligent person should realize that the one 
great problem facing civilization is the problem of 
making ] ( . S s possible a repetition of this irrational be- 



20 ?9J? 



havior. The militarists have a phrase that describes 
their procedure when confronted with a military prob- 
lem. They first make an "estimate of the situation." 
I venture in this paper a brief "estimate of the situa- 
tion." 

Some Factors. 

To solve the war problem is manifestly not easy. The 
economic rivalries, restrictions, and conflicts of interest 
are complicated facts. There is the continuous grasp ! 
for markets ; there is the constant conflict between those 
who are beneficiaries of a predatory wealth and those' 
who are upbuilding creative wealth. The irritations 
of competition are complicated by tariffs created by self- 
exploiting nations with little or no regard for the condi- 
tions or temper of other nations. These highly compli- 
cated economic facts, far from clearly understood, gen- 
erate international fears and differences which often 
hasten the oncoming of war. 

In addition to these economic factors, we are con- 
fronted with certain political situations and ambitions. 
There are the intolerant and the unnecessary differences 
and animosities between militarists and civilists, as if 
one large section of every nation madly desires war, 
while the remaining section as madly opposes it. Many 
interests fear democracy, and resort to secrecies, coer- 
cions, oppressions, and imperialisms, prompted seem- 
ingly by a faith in Treitschke's doctrine that "foreign 
war is the swift remedy for disunion and waning pa- 
triotism." This war has been defined as "the back-fire 
of privilege against democracy." The fear of internal 
revolutions undoubtedly made it easier for the European 
diplomats and governing classes to think in terms of 
strife. Political "alliances" have complicated seriously 
the situation. The alliance of France with Eussia, for 
example, made France logically the object of Germany's 
first attack. Secret diplomacy has made war the fiat of 
the few. This is undoubtedly a war largely for pres- 
tige. Conscription, real or threatened, has favored the 
exploitation of personal greed and ambitions and made 
more possible the exercise of the instinct to fight. Lack 
of ajij international political organization has made it 



possible for nations to think of denationalizing each 
other by force, of oppressing races, and of practicing 
other tyrannies. The unnatural boundaries of nations, 
the lack of coincidence between racial and national bor- 
ders, has been a source of political irritation. The in- 
sistence that the status quo must be maintained, and 
that treaties are unalterable and eternal have in an ad- 
vancing civilization often proved an irritating provo- 
cative of war. The political conception 'that the inter- 
ests of States are necessarily divergent is another. 

Then there are certain legal anomalies and difficulties 
which have also made war seem to be inevitable. Inter- 
national law has been found to be inadequate in quite 
the same way and for quite similar reasons that our own 
Articles of Confederation in force from 1781 to 1789 
were found to be inadequate. There is as yet no perma- 
nent law-making organization for the nations. There 
is no genuine law-interpreting organization for the na- 
tions. Naturally the nations are often unwilling to 
submit serious cases to an inadequate tribunal, with 
powers primarily of arbitration and compromise only. 

But these economic, political, and legal causes for war 
are not all. There are the commercial advantages which 
come to special groups in time of war. The profits in 
the manufacture of war munitions tend to develop a 
commercial plutocracy, slow to grasp the advantages of 
peace. 

Then, too, there are personal factors, limitless in num- 
ber and far from least. Our patriotism is often provin- 
cial. This is usually due to our ignorance of the spirit 
and motives of other people. We are prejudiced and 
bigoted, because we do not know any better. It is easy 
for this type of mind to become cynical and to read with 
avidity the sensationalisms of an opportunist press. 
Personal ambitions for social position feed upon ego- 
tisms, nourish jealousies, and spread far and near an 
enormous amount of loose talk. Most of us have failed 
to outgrow our ancient instinct to fight. The spirit of 
adventure is always abroad. There is undoubtedly a 
camaraderie in war very attractive, especially to virile 
young men tied to a plow, a counting desk, or a family 
fortune. It is a human disposition to be fearful, and so 



we generate fears — fears of invasion, of hunger, of a 
horrible attacking, consuming Moloch from beyond the 
seas. We enjoy the reputation of being 'loyal/' and so 
we talk proudly about our "loyalty to our flag," to our 
"honor," to our "property," to "liberty," "justice," 
"rights." These constitute in part the glow which ac- 
companies the enthusiasm for one's nation, but they are 
for the most part exclusive of any enthusiasm or interest 
or thought relating directly or indirectly to the interests 
of other nations. Since it is an instinct to follow a 
leader, the dei ex machince have little trouble in playing 
upon our instincts, our fears, and our loyalties. It is a 
personal weakness to be intolerant. Mr. Eoosevelt's 
opinions of the pacifists have become too warm safely to 
commit to paper. The pacifists' opinions of Mr. Koose- 
velt add by expression little to our national peace of 
mind. Another one of our idios3Ticrasies is to continue 
our misrepresentations of that much misunderstood 
scholar, Charles Darwin. We quite forget or ignore the 
fact that brutes within a species do not war among them- 
selves. Strangely, we have grown to believe that because 
struggle is essential, that therefore war is inevitable. 
Such progress as the race has made has not been because 
of war, but in spite of war. While two litigants may 
be mistaken as to their rights, or their rights may not 
be clear, and in consequence need interpretation, yet 
there can be no just war, because in the case of every 
war there are two sides at least, both of which cannot be 
wholly right. War is a wrongful method of trying to 
right real or imaginary wrongs, because equity cannot 
be justly determined by might alone. 

It is a strange reflection upon our personal outlook 
and capacity that there is no democratic control of the 
question whether or not we shall be led forth tp shoot 
and to be shot. Even parliaments had no control of the' 
foreign policies that led to this war. We have accepted 
the ancient fallacy of pure barbarism, and without think- 
ing, without question, that there are some disputes that 
can be settled only by throat slittings and disembowel- 
ments. We seem never seriously to question the old law 
of conquest, the law of the tooth and claw. 

Furthermore, and not least among the causes for war, 



^r 



is the ease with which in the shades of a smug national 
self-complacency, we somewhat arrogantly conclude that 
other nations must at any cost be made to conform to 
our notions, our whims of what ought to be. It is diffi- 
cult to outgrow the Hellenic doctrine that all beyond 
our borders are barbarians. 

These economic, political, legal, commercial, personal 
factors are for the most part real factors in any estimate 
of the situation as we set about the solution of the prob- 
lem of war. 

Of course these are not the only factors. Out of a 
confusion of thinking and limping logic regarding the 
State, we have developed many fallacies which by in- 
ertia perpetuate the conditions which make for war. 
For illustration, we pin our faith upon "alliances" with 
little regard for the efficiency of any machinery for the 
righteous and judicial settlement of our disputes. Our 
philosophy of government as regards internal order 
seems to us incapable of application to questions of in- 
ternational order. When we do think of international 
judicial machinery, we first begin to think of the excep- 
tions. We decide at once that we cannot submit ques- 
tions of "vital interest and honor," as if any interna- 
tional machinery can amount to anything unless it is 
capable of dealing with matters of vital interest and na- 
tional honor. We quite forget or ignore that our own 
first great international treaty, the Jay Treaty of 1794, 
between this country and Great Britain, involved ques- 
tions of vital interest and honor, and that the same 
thing was true in the very illuminating and important 
Geneva award in the case of the Alabama claims. In 
the language of that eminent authority, John Bassett 
Moore : "We must on the last analysis rely upon the 
cultivation of a mental attitude which will lead men to 
think first of amicable processes rather than of war when 
differences arise." But if this "mental attitude" is to be 
attained, we must somehow overcome the old false doc- 
trines that war is necessary to culture and ideals; that 
the flag must follow trade ; that large military States are 
essential to a people's good ; that the decisions of war are 
of necessity just; that armaments are an insurance 
against war. Somehow we must overcome the stupen- 
dous vanities, the exaggerated egotisms, the hypocrisy 



and lust for power that muddle their way along through 
secret "alliances'* and "ententes.'"' We must learn that 
governments cannot rest primarily and safely upon mili- 
tary force. "Wars are created by man. and what is cre- 
ated by man can be prevented by man. The expression 
that "war is in itself a good thing"' convinces one that 
there must be such a thing as total depravity. Navies 
are not used as an "international police force"; they 
never have been, and they probably never will be. It is 
true that life is a plexus of forces — physical, mental, 
and spiritual. Dr. John Dewey is quite accurate in stat- 
ing that these forces find expression sometimes as energy, 
sometimes as coercion, sometimes as constraint, some- 
times as violence. Certain of these types of forces are 
at the basis of all achievement, and it is by the regula- 
tion through law of these forces that wastes are avoided 
and that states and civilization exist. But it is the mili-~" 
tary force of violence, the individualistic and uncon- 
trolled exercise of a self-created military machine for 
the promotion of the interests of that self alone against/ 
which the pacifists are arrayed. There are types of force 
that may be in the interest of morality. The aim of the 
pacifists is not the el imin ation of force, qua force, but 
the modification and utilization of it to co-operative and Z/j >^L 

constructive ends. The aim is to substitute a higher~7 - 
force, a ■'■'super-resistance" for the war force. ^"""Vt <— « 

Methods of Solution. 

For the creation of this substitute for war there are 
many programs. Many people are talking about it, S 
probably more than ever before in history. Among the 
programs perhaps the most familiar are the tentative 
outline submitted by the Neutral Conference at Stock- 
holm, which grew out of the Ford Peace Party ; that of 
the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, with 
headquarters at The Hague; of the International Con- 
gress of Women, which also met at The Hague; of the 
League to Enforce Peace; of the Socialists here and 
abroad, and of the American Peace Society. The 
points upon which practically all of these programs 
agree are that the nations must set up a permanent in- 
ternational law-making body, a permanent international 



law-interpreting body, and, as set forth in most of the 
programs, an international council of conciliation for 
the investigation of and report upon non- justiciable in- 
ternational issues. There are many provisions and de- 
mands outside these three, but upon these three the 
agreement is practically unanimous. 

Among the various other proposals, I note these : That 
there should be no annexation or transfer of territory 
contrary to the interests and wishes of the population 
concerned ; that the States shall guarantee to the various 
nationalities included in their boundaries equality be- 
fore the law, religious liberty, and the free use of their 
native languages; that the States shall agree to intro- 
duce in their colonies or other dependencies liberty of 
commerce and equal treatment for all nations; that 
there shall be an extension of the existing Hague Court 
of Arbitration; that the States shall bind themselves 
to take concerted action, diplomatic, economic or mili- 
tary, in case any State should resort to military meas- 
ures or refuse to submit the dispute to the court or 
council of conciliation ; that States shall agree to reduce 
their armaments, to give up the right of capture, and 
to abide by the principle of the freedom of the seas; 
that foreign policy shall be under the effective control 
of parliaments, and that secret treaties shall be void. 

A bill was introduced and passed by our Sixty-fourth 
Congress which, among other things, calls for a confer- 
ence of all great governments not later than the close of 
the war, to formulate plans for the establishment of a 
world tribunal for the peaceful settlement of interna- 
tional disputes and to consider the question of disarma- 
ment. Congress appropriated $200,000 for the expenses 
of such a conference. In our country there is a con- 
stant agitation for a better Federal protection for aliens 
and a more comprehensive immigration policy for this 
country. There is a demand from some quarters for 
a declaration of the fundamental rights and duties of 
nations. Indeed, such a declaration was drawn, sub- 
mitted, and adopted by the American Institute of Inter- 
national Law at its meeting in January, 1916. 

Some of the problems which are discussed increas- 
ingly in this country, but more particularly by the 



peacemakers in belligerent lands, are the following: 
Should successful invasion justify annexation? Should 
the independence of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro 
be restored ? And should Belgium be fully compensated 
for her losses ? What is to be the fate of the German 
colonial territories, and what readjustments of European 
national boundaries are necessary ? The demand for in- 
creased economic opportunities in undeveloped sections 
of the world are more and more discussed. There is an 
increased interest in the principles of the "open door." 
As yet, however, we are evidently too near the war to 
formulate principles which are clearly applicable to all 
of these questions. It seems to be generally agreed that 
permanent grievances which lead nations to devote their 
energies to the preparation for future wars should be 
overcome. It is encouraging that we hear more and 
more about the future than we do about the possible 
means of retribution for the past. Eesponsible British 
statesmen have repudiated the theory of conquest. 
Voices in Germany have been heard also repudiating 
such intention. It is held by an increasing number of 
thoughtful people that the principle of nationality 
should be satisfied as far as possible in Poland, Alsace- 
Lorraine, the Trentino, the Slav districts to the south, 
Bulgarian-Macedonia, while the principle of neutraliza- 
tion should be extended through neutral States and 
buffer zones. Of course there remain the problem of 
German enterprises in Asiatic Turkey, the disposition 
of the Armenian provinces, the control of the Bosporus, 
and the whole question of free ports on the Adriatic, 
iEgean, Baltic, and North seas. The destruction of 
militarism and the freedom of the seas remain still in 
the realm of academic discussion, but they are real ele- 
ments in the situation. It seems more and more clearly 
to be realized that the welfare of nations does not rest 
so much upon the development of armed force as upon 
the principle of mutual co-operation. 



10 

An International Force. 

No estimate of the situation of the current peace 
movements can omit reference to the much-discussed 
problem of an international force. The League to En- 
force Peace, for example, makes the use of an interna- j 
tional force an indispensable and fundamental element/ 
in its program. Many voices, powerful voices, are 
raised in the defense of this belief. The arguments in 
its favor are so familiar that it is not 'necessary to give 
them here. There are arrayed against it, however, a 
number of arguments which, because they are less famil- 
iar, need perhaps to be stated. For instance, it is 
pointed out that if we of the United States should enter 
such a league, giving to the league the power to enforce 
peace in the case of other and recalcitrant nations, that 
the same league would have the power to enforce its will 
upon this country if for any reason they deemed the 
United States recalcitrant. It is held that the United 
States people, and especially the United States Senate, 
would never agree to such a league. It is shown that 
the United States Supreme Court, even though it repre- 
sents a real confederation of States, yet has no power 
to enforce its decrees against an individual State ; that, • 
indeed, the United States Supreme Court cannot compel 
a State to appear before it. In spite of these facts, the 
decrees of the United States Supreme Court are today 
enforced.. They are enforced because the public wills 
that they be enforced, and for no other reason. It is 
argued that before such an international force can be set 
up it will be necessary to establish an international 
legislature, an international court, and an international 
executive, none of which exists at the present. As Mr. 
Taft, president of the League to Enforce Peace, himself 
said : "We should first establish the court before calling 
in the sheriff." It is asked why it is not more reason- 
able to try out an International Legislature and an In- 
ternational Court before deciding the question whether 
we shall or shall not need an International Police? It 
is held that all law and institutions break down unless 
backed by public opinion, and whether there be force 
or not. If public opinion within a nation is educated 



11 

to the point of wishing international peace sufficiently 
to organize an international force which may be used 
against that nation itself, then an international military 
force would probably be ipso facto unnecessary. Pre- 
paredness to use force never has and never will neces- 
sarily operate as a deterrent in time of serious interna- 
tional crises. It is pointed out that there are two 
Leagues to Enforce Peace now in rather unsuccessful 
operation in Europe. The only effective sanction or 
hope of any court, especially of an international court, 
must be not the amount of fear which it inspires, but the 
kind of justice which it decrees. It is the coherence of 
an enlightened self-interest that makes international 
operations possible. 

It is true that the United States Constitution provides 
that only the Congress shall declare war, raise and sup- 
port armies, and that only the Congress shall have the 
poAver to provide for calling forth the militia for repel- 
ling invasions. Under the plan proposed by the League 
to Enforce Peace this power, at least in certain in- 
stances, will be delegated to an outside impalpable 
"League" made up of persons the majority of whom are 
citizens of other nations. If such a league were to 
operate against the United States, which would be per- 
fectly possible under the plan, so far as our own repre- 
sentatives participate in it, it would be a violation of that 
portion of the United States Constitution which calls 
it treason against the United States to levy war against 
it, to adhere to its enemies, or to give them aid and com- 
fort. If such a league were to operate against the 
United States, it would have to do so by invading a 
State or States. The United States Constitution pro- 
vides that the United States shall protect each of the 
States against invasion. For these reasons many be- 
lieve that the plans of the League to Enforce Peace as- 
sume too much. It is not probable that the United 
States Senate has the power to enter into any such po- 
litical union. It is doubtful if it can be prevailed upon 
to accept a scheme, even in principle, which would mate- 
rially curtail its constitutional prerogatives, subordinate 
the Congress of the United States to a league unknown 
to and inconsistent with the Constitution of the United 



12 

States, permanently abdicate a large share of our na- 
tional sovereignty, and change, both in fact and in 
theory, the form and substance of our Government. The 
question will persist whenever the plan is definitely con- 
sidered by practical statesmen in concrete situations, 
what is to become of the sovereign independence of na- 
tions, especially of the small nations ? 

In 1623 Emeric Cruce proposed a league to enforce 
peace. Tracing the rise of the peace movement from 
that time through the great programs of Hugo Grotius, 
Sully, William Penn, Saint-Pierre, Bentham, Immanuel 
Kant, and William Ladd, we find a progressive decrease 
of emphasis upon the possibilities of an international 
force until with Kant and Ladd it disappears altogether. 
Indeed, the plan of perpetual peace proposed by Abbe 
de Saint-Pierre, patterned after Sully, and which pro- 
vided for the use of an international force to uphold the 
decisions of the international congress, was tried in the 
Germanic Confederation of 1815 and failed, and it was 
tried under the terms of Metternich's Troppau Protocol, 
in the case of the Holy Alliance, where it also failed. 
Cardinal Pleury, Prime Minister to Louis XV of 
France, when presented with the scheme proposed by 
the Abbe, pleasantly remarked that the document should 
have a preliminary article providing for the education 
of missionaries to "dispose the hearts of the princes of 
Europe to submit to such a diet." 

It would be necessary for the United States to disavow 
its Monroe Doctrine before it could enter into such a 
league. Our ancient policy of avoiding entangling al- 
liances would have to be utterly changed, and we would 
soon find ourselves forced to participate in military oper- 
ations in some distant part of the globe and over matters 
possibly of very little concern to this nation. How such 
a league can be organized, officered, and financed does 
not appear. What nations shall be excluded, if any, and 
how the league shall be controlled, are problems not 
without difficulties. There seems to have been an in- 
sufficient amount of thought given to such details as the 
element of personal equation, of the possibility of rival 
leagues, of the old difficulties involved in the principle 



13 

of the balance of power, and of the form and methods 
of the various kinds of guarantees. Shall Turk, Rus- 
sian, Siamese, and Englander share and share alike in 
the plan, or what other basis of representation shall be 
provided? Other problems involved are the composi- 
tion of an international code, the control of interna- 
tional waterways, the old questions of tariffs, of arti- 
ficial boundaries, of neutrality, and the rest. How is 
it to be decided who the recalcitrant nation really is? 
When do legitimate national aspirations become illegiti- 
mate and subject to review by the court ? How can the 
plan be made to apply to those who do not subscribe to it 
voluntarily? What is to become of the strong spirit of 
nationalism more and more characteristic of modern 
States ? Is it not true that conciliation and compulsion 
are mutually exclusive terms? Shall or shall not the 
plan rest upon the maintenance of the status quo ? 

Mr. Taft said at Mohonk in May, 1916, that force was 
inserted in the program "with the hope that the threat 
will be enough without actual resort to military or eco- 
nomic means." That sounds almost like an apology for 
the insertion. Mr. Taft also agreed that the program 
represented simply "a working hypothesis." Such men 
as Herr Von Jagow and Lord Cromer doubt that it is 
even a working hypothesis. As Mr. Bryan said at the 
same Mohonk meeting: "Stepping from moral suasion 
to force is a step down and not up." It is towards mon- 
archy, and not towards democracy. The Hon. Charles 
E. Hughes, speaking with reference to the Adamson law, 
at Green Bay, Wisconsin, September 20, 1916, said : 
"All we have to do is to stand firmly for principle and 
we can get justice done." This is but a restatement of 
the position taken some time ago by Mr. Elihu Root, 
that the sanction for international law is public opinion ; 
a position taken by Bynkershoek, Scott, and others, who 
have held that sovereignty lies only in the common con- 
sent — that is to say, in humanity, public opinion, which 
grows out of customs, codes, decisions, treaties, awards, 
laws, and precedents of nations. In any event, the whole 
plan for an international force ignores, at least seems to 
ignore, the evolutionary forces and conflicting ideals 
with which such a force would inevitably be faced when 



14 

once it reached the plane of practical politics. No agree- 
ment to abide by the decisions of tribunals is provided 
for. All signatories retain independent armaments. It 
is an express method of carrying on war with inadequate 
organization for doing even that effectively. 

There have been great international conventions — the 
Paris Conventions, the Geneva Convention, the Hague 
Conventions, the London Convention. None of them 
planned for an enforcing authority. 

The arguments in favor of an international force are 
drawn from analogies which apply to frontier communi- 
ties within a State, to the conduct of cities, to highway 
robbery, and to a posse comitatus. But these analogies 
are not applicable to international situations or great 
masses of men. A nearer analogy would be that of the 
relation of the Supreme Court of the United States to 
issues joined between any two States of the Union. And, 
as we have seen, the United States Supreme Court con- 
trols and needs no military force for the enforcement of 
its decrees. 

For these reasons, it is argued, the plan for an inter- 
national military force seems to make the solution of the 
problem of war more difficult by complicating it with 
a factor which is not only unknown, but which, so far as 
we know, is unnecessary. 

From the Known to the Unknown. 

Statesmen at the close of the present war will be little 
concerned with dreams. Their experience since August 
1, 1914, has been with stern realities. They are think- 
ing now only in terms of the concrete. They are follow- 
ing the principle well known to the pedagogues that one 
must proceed from the known to the unknown. This 
principle will dominate the conference called to arrange 
the terms of peace. 

At that conference the first question that the prac- 
tical-minded men will ask is, What in the way of inter- 
national organization have we? Manifestly, the most 
apparent thing they will have will be the existing alli- 
ances, the entente, and the organization of the central 
powers. But they will neither forget nor ignore that 
it was the treaty of Chaumont, of March 10, 1814. 



15 

signed by Great Britain, Austria, Eussia, and Prussia, 
that brought about the fall of Napoleon and led to the 
Holy Alliance, the Council of Vienna, and, long after, 
the Hague Conferences. When Alexander the First, the 
Emperor of Eussia, proclaimed, in September, 1815, on 
the Champ des Vertus, near Paris, the principles of the 
Holy Alliance, he represented the popular reaction of 
men against the horrors of the wars that had devastated 
the earth for so long. He spoke, and I think sincerely 
at the time, for those who wished for the future a gen- 
uine protection for "Eeligion, Peace, and Justice." The 
Congress of Vienna closed June 9, 1815, after nine long 
months of rancor and discussion on the part of all the 
governments and principalities of Europe except Tur- 
key. But the dominant aim of that Congress was also 
the establishment of peace. While the battle of Water- 
loo took place a few days thereafter, 3 r et the bases of a 
long peace had actually been laid. At Chaumont, at 
Paris, at Vienna, the one aim was the peace of Europe. 

The conference at the peace, when once this war is 
ended, will have a similar aim. The conferees will 
fence as in previous conferences, but the dominating 
aim of the conference will again be that there may be a 
permanent international peace. 

It is reasonable to hope that that conference will be 
more successful than any of the conferences heretofore. 
In the first place, they will have before them the failures 
of the Holy Alliance and of the Congress of Vienna, and 
the reasons for those failures. They will be confronted 
with the history of one hundred years of persistent edu- 
cation in behalf of a more rational international order. 
They will be acquainted with the significant rise of the 
principle of arbitration as shown by the six hundred in- 
ternational treaties since 1794. They will be obliged to 
recognize that the Hague Conferences are great facts of 
history; that, as international law-making bodies, they 
have had a profound influence upon international law 
and practice. The Hague Conference of 1899 set up a 
law-interpreting organization known as the Court of 
Arbitration, which "Court" has settled sixteen interna- 
tional difficulties, some of which might have led to war. 
The Hasrae Conference of 1907 revealed that all the 



16 

nations of the world are in favor of a genuine supreme 
court for the nations. The principle that investigation 
should precede action has found expression in thirty-one 
definite international treaties between the United States 
and foreign governments. Co-operation between Amer- 
ican republics has given rise to what we hopefully call 
Pan Americanism. The definition of the Eights and 
Duties of Nations is a live topic of discussion among 
men of affairs. International organizations have multi- 
plied rapidly, especially within the last generation. The 
Universal Postal Union, for instance, is an encouraging 
example of highly successful international co-operative 
effort. For nearly thirty years the Interparliamentary! 
Union has shown the interest of statesmen in interna-! 
tionalism. The conferees will be especially familiar 
with the Geneva Tribunal which settled the Alabama 
Claims in 1872; with the Paris Tribunal, which settled 
the Seals Controversy in 1893, and with the Hague Tri- 
bunal, which settled the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries 
Dispute in 1910, a dispute which had lasted through 
three generations. 

The point is that the makers of peace at the close of 
this war, following the principle that practical men pro- 
ceed from the known to the unknown, will be confronted 
and helped by a world experience which the men behind 
the Holy Alliance and the Council of Vienna could not 
have profited by or foreseen. 

Men have been able to organize their States in opposi- 
tion to war heretofore. They have been able to preserve 
peace during critical years. As a result, they have been 
able to develop their industries, commerce, and educa- 
tional institutions extensively. The feeling that na- 
tions are mutually dependent upon each other is stronger 
today than ever before. International law is, in conse- 
quence, more and more respected and appealed to. The 
old quadruple alliance following Chaumont, the quin- 
tuple alliance, the triple alliance, the entente, the con- 
cert of Europe have shown what groups of nations can 
do, and incidentally what they cannot do when arrayed 
against each other. The great hope for those opposed 
to war is that there may be a growing consciousness of 
its wrongs and injustice and a larger working faith in 
the principles of law and order. 



17 

Sir Rabindranath Tag-ore, now visiting in this coun- 
try, which appeals to him as "a great laboratory in 
which are to be solved all the problems of the human 
race," recently remarked : 

"The great purpose of the present age is that of bring- 
ing together all races into relations of mutual under- 
standing and sympathy, of unifying men and nations 
into an harmonious whole. 

"The observing traveler can see in all countries the 
great breaking down of barriers and prejudices that is 
taking place, and the insistent reaching out for broader 
spheres of thought and action. This is the greatest 
transition period in all history. For the first time hu- 
manity is awakening to a world consciousness. Writers 
and thinkers are breathing a freer atmosphere than ever 
before, and in men's minds there is a growing restless- 
ness. It is as if the world is struggling to be born 
anew. 

"This war is the inevitable friction resulting from 
many nations coming in close contact for the first time. 
It is the world awakening. There is struggle, con- 
fusion, and darkness at first, but soon there will be 
unity, peace, and light/' 

Conclusion. 

This statement of our real world problem, of some of 
the factors which enter into it, of the methods of solu- 
tion suggested from various quarters, of the inadequacy 
of an international military force, and of the facts of a 
century of international endeavor, is offered with a full 
confidence that others, with greater knowledge and 
keener insight, will develop a more significant and help- 
ful "estimate of the situation." 



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